[ATTENDED: August 30, 2019] Stonefield
I was very excited to see King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard again. I was a little less excited that they were playing at Franklin Music Hall (formerly The Electric Factory). I’ve had some pretty bad show experiences there and the venue is fairly narrow and quite long. (Although good for KGATLW for moving from the 1,200 capacity Union Transfer to the 2,500 capacity Franklin (not sure if they sold out)).
My worst experiences were with parking–huge lines, high fees. Then I discovered you can park for free on the streets a couple blocks away, so that made things much better. But those parking issues often meant that I got in the building later than I wanted to. For Nick Cave I was so far back I was next to a very ill-placed bar in the middle of the floor. Franklin has removed that bar, thankfully.
So, I made sure to arrive super early (for me). Doors opened at 7:30, show at 8:30. I arrived at 8 and the line to get in was around the building! Usually people don’t arrive all that early for shows–they blow off the openers, which is fine by me. But this crowd was nuts. Turns out Franklin is REALLY slow about checking people in. Not as bad as the abyssal Starland Ballroom, but pretty bad. I did not get into the building until 8:25. Which is unbelievable. We also heard a live band playing while we were on line, which we all assumed was the opening band going on early (it wasn’t, I have no idea what it was).
Turns out everyone arrived early to get merch. The merch line snaked from the booth near the entrance almost all the way to the stage where it made a U-Turn. So it wasn’t really crowded if you were just going to watch. I negotiated a pretty good spot until the 6 foot guy walked in front of me and the 6 foot tall guys to my left turned out to be talkers. Alas.
But it was hard to spoil a fantastic set by Stonefield.
Stonefield is a band of four sisters from rural Darraweit Guim in Australia. Drummer Amy Lee Findlay (the oldest sister) formed the band when she was 16. The band includes Hannah on lead guitar and vocals, Sarah on keyboards and vocals, and Holly on bass guitar (Holly was 8 at the time, and has turned 21 this year).
They were fantastic. They have a great stoner-metal vibe with a fantastic low end. The addition of the keyboard allowed for a lot of different sounds to be thrown into the mix–retro sounds and futuristic sounds as well. And Hannah’s solos were pretty ripping.
I was really impressed with Amy’s drumming–she hits hard–and I liked the way she would keep the drum beats simpler during the verses and the play pretty complex stuff during the instrumental breaks–it was cool the way the drums would change up mid song.
The band was big on big riffs. And Amy’s voice was really powerful–broadcasting over the loudness.
The band ran through a bunch of songs and really won the crowd over during their 40 minute set. They often had a serious groove going on. Towards the end there was even a part where the crowd spontaneously started clapping along–not bad for an opening act.
I also really liked the look of Hannah’s second guitar (picture right).
They played mostly songs from their latest album, which makes sense. And I think they made many new fans.
Markit Aneight was there to record the whole show
SETLIST
- Sleep ζ
- Through the Storm ⇒
- Dog Eat Dog ζ
- Dead Alive ζ
- 66 ζ
- Far From Earth ⇒
- People ζ
- Woman ζ
- Sister ⇑
- Delusion ⇒
- Eyes ⇑
ζ Bent (2019)
⇒ Far From Earth (2018)
⇑ As Above, So Below (2016)
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